If you spend much time in the Gulf you might be familiar with this particular scene. It’s a Tuesday morning and you have a full day of meetings booked in. Given the traffic in Dubai, it’s likely that you won’t have time to zip back to the hotel before an evening of drinks and dinner, so you stand in front of the open suitcase that you’ve been travelling with for three weeks and try to plot the best get-up for the day ahead.

There’s breakfast with a hotel-group CEO, two meetings prior to lunch, time in the car before two more meetings, then a journey out to the desert for a gathering of ministers before it’s back to DXB for the flight home. Across the day there will be conversations with a couple of Westerners in assorted leadership posts but most will be with Emirati men looking immaculate in their kandoras, with laser-sharp beards and elegant headgear. In my daily Western life I feel like I have a bit of a uniform that works in most situations – JM Weston loafers or Paraboot oxfords, a couple of well-cut chinos, good knits, tab-collar shirts and a selection of blazers and work jackets. But settled among Emiratis under starry Arabian skies I feel like a rumpled, disjointed mess. Add to this that it’s freaking hot all the time and the Western “uniform” is simply not fit for working in the Gulf, nor many other corners of the up-and-coming and still-developing world.

In the October issue of Monocle we dissected the importance and revival of national dress and it’s clear there’s a need for a European nation or two to take the lead in defining a new standardised costume for situations both casual and formal. At a recent event at the Ritz in Paris, Monocle’s luxury commentator Sagra Maceira de Rosen predicted that we’re moving to a world where uniforms are going to be the height of desirability. She’s got a point. Why not define a new European vernacular that’s appropriate to varying climates, settings and spectacles? It’ll require a consortium of designers and craftspeople to define the codes of must-have garments that you’d be proud to wear at home and abroad. At the moment it’s only a small corner of Europe’s Alpine region where Tracht (think lederhosen and dirndls) can be worn in daily life without looking vaguely ridiculous. While I don’t need much of an excuse to throw on a janker and some deerskin shorts, it’s not quite what I have in mind for a form of 21st-century dress, let alone suitable for 40C mornings in Abu Dhabi.

On the flight back to Zürich, some time before I passed out, I was thinking that this new form of Euro-Western attire might borrow a few codes from traditional Veneto tailoring, French ateliers and Tyrolean workwear. From the bottom up I’m seeing a slightly heftier version of a Venetian slipper, a generously cut (yet tapered) trouser that’s slightly cropped and a boxy jacket with an officer’s collar. Beneath, there are merino-wool undergarments and knit shirts (long and short) in various weights. To top it off there’s a vest for cool days and a cape-style coat when things get chilly. There would be an emphasis on premium textiles from Europe’s finest mills. Much like the nations of the Gulf there’d be regional differences in fabrics and finishes but the overall look would be similar yet distinguishable – the French discernible from the Swedes and the Dutch from the Belgians while passing through any major airport. Over the coming months, Monocle will be expanding its collection of own-label garments, anyone up for joining the European costume project?

PS: In yesterday’s column Andrew Tuck set me up to tell you more about our little Bodrum weekend for Monocle’s Patrons, and while there is much to report (faultless service, adoring dogs, the best swimming set-up, a generous owner and a sunny group of our most dedicated readers), it’s better to convey the overall vibe with a few images captured in and around the Maçakizi hotel by our colleague Linard Baer. If you’ve not tried this superb property, you still have another two weeks to secure a bit of Mediterranean sunshine. And if you would like to become a Patron, my colleague Holly Anderson (han@monocle.com) will be happy to welcome you.